Chinese Leaders Were Split On Crackdown, Papers Say

January 07, 2001|By Richard Bernstein, New York Times News Service.

Throughout the day on May 17, 1989, with student-led demonstrators occupying Beijing's Tiananmen Square and paralyzing much of the country, several of China's most powerful figures dropped by the home of the most powerful of them all, Deng Xiaoping, to discuss what to do.

"If things continue like this, we could even end up under house arrest," Deng warned his old revolutionary comrades, according to a new book of documents that its editors say are classified Communist Party archives smuggled out of China. "After thinking long and hard about this, I've concluded that we should bring in the People's Liberation Army and declare martial law in Beijing."

The hundreds of documents, which have been deemed authentic by several experts, appear in "The Tiananmen Papers," to be published Monday. They help explain how China's rulers decided to order a military crackdown that in June 1989 killed hundreds of people and put China's present leadership in place.

They also suggest how deeply divided the top leaders were and how close the country came during those protests to embracing political change rather than crushing it.

The documents were provided to U.S. scholars in computer printout form by a mysterious Chinese figure who uses the pseudonym Zhang Liang and says he represents people in the Communist Party who favor more rapid change.

The translated collection of documents is being published by PublicAffairs in New York.

A central question concerns the authenticity of the documents, which include minutes of Politburo meetings, army and intelligence reports and memorandums of meetings Deng held with his comrades. But in interviews, the scholars who have pored over the documents and grilled Zhang have expressed the conviction that the documents are authentic.

The documents indicate that the officials who formally held the top posts in China--the members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo--were split 2-2, with one abstention, over whether to use force to end the demonstrations. Without a majority, the hard-liners lacked the standing to call in the troops and crush the protests.

But Deng and his octogenarian comrades, who had retired from most of their official posts in the government or party but still held ultimate power, broke the deadlock.

The documents suggest an important conclusion, one that had been surmised before but now emerges more forcefully: Had it not been for Deng and the other elders, the moderates might have prevailed in the power struggle, averting bloodshed and inaugurating a period of greater political openness and economic liberalization.

Disclosure of the documents could erode the authority of the top two Chinese leaders. One is Jiang Zemin, China's president and Communist Party general secretary, who was awarded the top party post after Deng and the elders dismissed party chief Zhao Ziyang for opposing martial law.

The other is Li Peng, who was prime minister in 1989 and later was named head of China's parliament. Li in particular comes across in the documents as inflaming the elders and manipulating information to encourage them to order a military crackdown.

The Tiananmen demonstrations began in mid-April 1989, at first to mourn the death of Hu Yaobang, a former party leader and a symbol of political reform. The mourning soon turned into vast demonstrations demanding a free press, more open and representative government, a crackdown on corruption and inflation, and independent labor unions.

Deng, China's supreme leader, who died in 1997, comes across in the documents as both infuriated and tormented by the demonstrations, which he saw as deeply damaging to his long-term strategy of economic and political modernization for China.

According to the documents, he often voiced the opinion that a tiny minority of Chinese whose secret, unstated goal was the overthrow of the communist system was manipulating the students. Deng seemed to believe this "minority" was backed by outside countries, especially the United States.

"Some Western countries use things like `human rights' or like saying the socialist system is irrational or illegal to criticize us," Deng is quoted as saying on June 2, as the leaders made plans to use force against the students, "but what they're really after is our sovereignty."

Estimates of the number of people killed are far lower in the documents than among some foreign observers. Two days after the crackdown, Li is quoted as telling the elders that about 23 soldiers and 200 civilians had been killed; foreign estimates ranged from several hundred to several thousand or more.

The documents paint a picture of the party elders losing faith in Zhao and discussing various candidates to replace him. Early on, they indicate, Deng seemed to favor Li Ruihuan, a moderate with a reputation of being open-minded about political and economic change.

But other senior figures in the leadership are quoted as favoring Jiang, the party secretary of Shanghai, whom they praised for his resolute and hard-line stance in closing down what was then China's boldest newspaper.

Deng, who comes across in the transcripts as the key figure but also as deferential to other elders such as Chen Yun and Li Xiannian, apparently allowed himself to be convinced.

"Comrades Chen Yun and Xiannian and I all lean toward comrade Jiang Zemin for general secretary," Deng is quoted as announcing later at a meeting of elders at his house. "What do the rest of you think?"